The conventional progressive wisdom is that the Trump Administration will be bad for cities and for transit users. But in recent decades, a unified Republican government has been better for public transit than a divided government.

An efficient and equitable transport system must be diverse to serve diverse travel demands. Planners need better tools to quantify and communicate the benefits of walking, cycling and public transit to sometimes skeptical decision makers.

Ideas to Outmode the Strip Mall

In a contest sponsored by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, architecture firms nationwide competed to show off how they would best use land currently devoted to strip malls. <i>Bustler</i> provides the winning entries.

"Strip malls define our streetscapes. Here, and in suburbs across the country, strip malls are a fact of life. They are the wallflowers of thousands of streetscapes that millions of people travel daily. To envision a new future for this lowly (yet overabundant) building stock, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) initiated the national competition 'Flip a Strip' in late 2007 that resulted in 35 innovative proposals by architectural teams from around the country, for flipping local strip malls in Scottsdale, Tempe and Phoenix, AZ. What potential might there be for live/work developments, urban farming, social spaces and signature architecture in the no-man's land of the strip mall? Flip a Strip posits exciting opportunities to turn this suburban cliché inside out."

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